Legal thought leader visits Newcastle

Date: July 27, 2018

 

Media Release:

 

Legal thought leader visits Newcastle

 

University of Newcastle law students have been warned that they will need to acquire more skills than their predecessors needed, during a visit by world-renowned legal thought-leader Mitch Kowalski.

Visiting from his native Canada, speaking to faculty and students today, Kowalski said young lawyers and law students will increasingly need to be able to quickly tell the difference between two different types of legal practices if they are to future-proof their own careers.

“We are well and truly in an era where traditional law firms are facing extinction – they’re a dying breed stuck in their old ways versus a NewLaw practice,” Kowalski said.

“Part of the problem is that many firms are over-invested in their current business model and this causes them to miss, and even ignore, the needs and desires of their clients. But at some point, there will be a reckoning.”

Kowalski said many law firms today are not only failing to address the needs of their clients, they are failing to address the needs of their own millennial talent – despite already having the tools to do both.

A former partner at a major international law firm, and a Fastcase 50 Global Legal Innovator, Kowalski told students that having a sustainable legal career will be heavily influenced by the type of firms they choose to work with in the first few years of their legal career.

Newcastle born and raised legal innovator Nathan Hepple said his businesses, HBA Legal and Pillion which is based in Newcastle, were founded on NewLaw principles.

“Our delivery service model is unique in Australia and clients love it because we work as a team to devise a path to get to an outcome, rather than approach it old style: day by day, racking up fees with no clear direction on the end game for the client,” Hepple said.

“It seems crazy to me that I can stand here and say our model is unique – it shouldn’t be unique – more firms need to be adapting and evolving.

“I actually see it as my obligation to the next generation of young lawyers coming through the pipeline to heed these warnings and take this stuff seriously.”

Kowalski added: “Sadly, many partners of traditional law firms who are nearing retirement have taken the short-sighted, and some might say, selfish attitude that the industry reformation will happen after they’re out of the profession.  As a consequence, it’s easier and more profitable for them personally to put their heads in the sand.”

“Let me ask you: how many law firm ‘innovation’ announcements are simply good public relations, and how many are real, actionable, and sustainable? The clatter of information about law firm innovation has become overwhelming and confusing,” Kowalski said.

“Just as Generals talk about the ‘fog of war,’ the ‘fog of legal innovation’ has settled thickly over the legal services industry – all with very little change to it. Students need to be wary and pick their way carefully through the fog.”
Mr Kowalski has been in NSW this week as a guest of HBA Legal, having already spent time in Perth earlier this month with Curtin University and the University of Western Australia.

  

About Mitch Kowalski

Kowalski is a former partner at a major international law firm and former in-house Counsel, a legal innovation consultant, Fastcase 50 Global Legal Innovator and the Gowling WLG Visiting Professor in Legal Innovation at the University of Calgary Law School. He’s a sought-after commentator and speaker on legal innovation around the world, and the author of two critically-acclaimed NewLaw books including “The Great Legal Reformation” which provides a range of case studies illustrating the gains to be had from treading a NewLaw path. Kowalski lives in Toronto, Canada.

 

About HBA Legal

The HBA Group consists of HBA Legal, Pillion (Newcastle based) & Paratus. HBA Legal was established in 2011 with a mission to challenge the old model of law and bring smart, efficient, commercially savvy solutions to clients. Directors, Nathan Hepple and Brett Ablong, have since gone on to create the HBA Group. HBA lawyers provide the legal advice that makes Paratus unique as a claims management business. Pillion helps HBA Legal and Paratus keep their admin costs down, to support their competitive fees and commercial viability. This model affords HBA Group employees opportunities for growth and learning that no other law firm in Australia can offer.

Pillion (located on Hunter street) employs a number of University of Newcastle students as paralegals. It works in partnership with the University of Newcastle to identify talent. Pillion employees benefit from experience and exposure within a national legal practice.
 

 

Media contact:

Sarah Tempest 0402 946 603  sarah.tempest@hbalegal.com

 

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